Havana bus service is improving but still woeful

Posted on Fri, Sep. 26, 2008

Havana bus service is improving but still woeful
Associated Press

HAVANA -- Cuba has spent nearly $270 million since 2005 to improve
Havana's woeful public transportation system, but still meets the needs
of less than a quarter of all commuters.

Ricardo Damian Fernández, the communist government's vice minister of
transportation, said Friday that the purchase of nearly 3,000 new and
used buses from Russia and China have helped Havana's daily ridership
nearly double to 900,000 in 2007 from 426,000 in 2004.

But that total still represents just 23 percent of would-be ridership,
which peaked at 4.2 million in the late 1980s.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of subsidies it provided
Cuba crippled the island's economy and left public transportation
systems nationwide on the verge of collapse.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/AP/story/703617.html